Hearts of Chaos

by Kira Brady

  Shaking so hard she could barely keep aloft, she landed on a rocky outcrop a foot above the surface of the salt water and Changed. Painful, slow, but the Aether didn’t abandon her. She made it.

  “Corbette? Can you hear me?” No answer but her own voice echoed back at her. He’d already gone under. The thought of being crushed under all that water and rock sent spirals of white cascading across her vision. She remembered—gods, she remembered. The blood and the pain and the betrayal. The earthquake that had crashed the rock around her and shaken the marrow from her bones. The despair as she’d felt her lifeblood seep away to fuel the opening Gate. Corbette’s black eyes finding her, locking onto her, never letting her go. She would have crashed out on a maelstrom of loss, but he’d anchored her to the Living World like a clothesline in a blizzard. There had been madness, and then there had been him. He’d drawn her back, one frozen finger at a time, until her soul had poured back into her injured body and the shadows had fled from the broken corners of her soul. He’d been there for her, and she couldn’t imagine a world where he wasn’t waiting in the wings to save her again.

  He needed her now. She couldn’t avoid the rolling water. She had to find him before the clay man did.

  With a deep breath, she dove beneath the waves. The shock of frozen cold assaulted her. After a beat, she reoriented herself and kicked down and under, finding the tunnel Kai had told her about. Her lungs burned. Cranes were waterfowl, but not meant for narrow passageways and angry salt seas. Fear fueled her body, and then she was through and into the magic-infested burrow of the Spider’s lair.

  Corbette pulled aside a thick curtain of spider silk with the point of his cane, and a cloud of dust rained from the roof. He’d brought a torch and a rucksack full of food and supplies. He didn’t know what it would be like on the other side of the Gate, but he was prepared for anything: a blizzard, a demonic storm, an army of ghosts. What he wasn’t prepared for was the small, wet woman who charged into his back, almost knocking him down.

  “Corbette? Corbette! I found you.”

  He caught her; hands found bare skin and long, wet tresses covered in spider silk. “Good gods, Lucia, you’re . . . you’re . . .” Wet. Cold. Naked. He wanted to draw her to him to warm her and stop her shaking. The torch, which had dropped but not burnt out, illuminated her pale limbs and the shadow between her thighs. Startled, he froze. Lady be. He’d said good-bye, at least in his mind. He never thought he’d touch her again, and now here she was, a siren in the dark, naked and alone and—gods, did he mention naked? “What are you doing here?”

  “The clay man. Tiamat sent”—she took a huge shaking breath—“Ereshkigal’s Scepter and . . .”

  “Shhh, calm yourself.” He rubbed his hands down her shivering arms. Her skin was so smooth, her limbs so delicate. The Raven was a visual creature, but the man craved touch, and the temptation of her skin was too great. He yanked her clothes from the Aether to shield her from his sight. Too late, he realized the last clothes he’d seen her in had been the scarlet gown. The sudden flash of red and silk, the tightening of her waist and thrust of her small breasts as the corset materialized, sent his senses reeling. He set her away from him and took a long step back. He was only a man, and she was forbidden. “Now tell me from the beginning.”

  Her fingers flew to a chain around her neck that disappeared beneath her gown between the valley of her breasts. She held on, her breathing labored for a long moment as she adjusted to the weight of petticoats and silk. “We went to the Temple of Ishtar and watched Zetian, with Tiamat inside her, kill a man and turn him to clay.”

  “The Enkidu. They were used in ancient Babylon as bodyguards for the royal family. Gilgamesh took one on his journey to the underworld.”

  “Will she make more? It was gruesome.” Lucia wrapped her arms around herself.

  “I don’t know. Tell me the rest.”

  “Zetian—Tiamat—sent him through the Gate to bring back the Scepter of the goddess of Death. She means to overthrow the gods and take over both worlds. She will be all powerful.”

  Every word was rent out of his nightmare, but this was the waking world. He’d failed to protect the Gate, failed to protect the woman under his care, and now the Babylonian Goddess of Primordial Chaos sought to rule his world and the next? Even Halian’s mistake hadn’t been so great. If his father had only killed the Drekar when he’d had the chance, all this could have been avoided. He searched his brain for the moment when his protocols had begun to break down. Chaos was the opposite of everything he worked for. Safety, security for his people. There was no room for mistakes. No space for unpredictable people who didn’t toe the line. He picked up his cane and shouldered the rucksack. “Yes, Tiamat will likely make more Enkidu to protect herself and her spawn. Thank you for your assistance. Please go back now. Quickly. Tell the others what you told me, and don’t leave the Hall again. Not for anything—”

  “Don’t you understand?” Lucia grabbed his sleeve as he tried to turn. “She said Kai was waiting for her. The clay man went to get the Scepter while Tiamat joins Kai at Kivati Hall. When I left, she was on her way with all of Ishtar’s Maidens from the Temple.”

  “You think Kai disloyal?”

  She bit her lip. “Don’t you?”

  “Given recent actions, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”

  “I was right to help the Drekar against Kingu! Tiamat is much worse—”

  “And she is the mother of all dragons. The Drekar can’t help but heed her call. But Kai? I don’t believe he would turn, not for anything. Still, Kivati Hall has withstood a Drekar siege before. Go back and tell Will what you’ve told me.”

  “He knows—”

  “Then return to the Hall and, for the love of the Lady, follow directions for once. You must listen to me: cut all ties with the Drekar. They will flock to their Goddess.” He took her hand and searched her eyes. “We must eliminate them before they can join Tiamat’s plans.”

  Her jaw tightened. “Not all of them will follow her.”

  “Of course they will. It’s in their nature. You don’t know what they’re capable of. You’ve been sheltered from much of the bloodshed.”

  Her lips pulled back to show her even white teeth. She didn’t look so delicate anymore. “The Gate fell because of one of us,” she snapped. “My blood opened it. My blood destroyed the world. Sheltered? Look at me, Corbette. See me. All you see when you look at me is some broken, pretty thing. I don’t even recognize myself! There is more to me than that, and I’m not going to spend the rest of my life trying to atone for some sin that’s not my fault. I can’t be that fragile, sensitive Lady you seem to want. Every time you look at me I see the disappointment in your eyes—”

  “Not for you—”

  “And I can’t bear it. I’m sorry the Crane chose me. I’m sorry I didn’t live up to your expectations from the beginning. But, damn it, I’ve faced down the Gate breaking and Kingu’s army and snuck past the Goddess of Fucking Chaos, and I’m not going to blindly follow your orders.”

  Gods, she thought this of him? He’d only thought of his own failure, his own response to her that reminded him all too sharply of his lack of control as a raw youth. He had put her off to give them both time to adjust to their new roles. He’d thought his instinctive draw to her would cool off. He’d believed she would grow into her powers eventually. He’d wanted to wait until things were settled with the Drekar, until they had safety for their people, peace to get to know each other away from the war. He’d thought they had time. He’d been wrong.

  “The Drekar must do as their mother goddess commands,” he said. “Think if our Lady demanded sacrifice from us—could we refuse? No.”

  “A brave man would do what is right, will of the gods or not.”

  “Well stung, Lady Crane.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No.”

  She let go of his sleeve and raised her chin. “I can help—”

  He bar
ked a laugh.

  Her nostrils flared. “Tiamat will have reached the Hill by now. There is no other direction to go. If you send me back, you send me straight into her arms.”

  Corbette stared at her, white hair plastered back from her too wide blue eyes, dress the color of sin set off by her moonlight complexion. She ruined every one of his plans. He searched his brain for somewhere safe to stash her, but there was nowhere but the Hill. How could he bring her through the Gate and into death? Everything he’d worked so hard for was crumbling like grains of sand. Winding a hand through a long strand of her hair, he pulled her close and let her see the wild in his eyes. “Then you shouldn’t have come, Lucia.”

  “You needed to know about the Scepter. You must stop the Enkidu.” Her pupils dilated. Her fingers tightened on his sleeves. He could smell her fear. He could smell her arousal. He’d never handled her roughly like this, and it excited her. He wasn’t sure who was more surprised, he or she.

  And that made him angrier, because he’d never treated her with anything but kid gloves, but she still knew his animalistic nature was capable of less civilized brutality. She should demand more from him. He demanded more from himself.

  “If you can’t go with me and you can’t go back, you must fly, little bird. Fly fast and fly far and leave this cursed land behind you.” His voice broke. This land was part of his blood. It had been the home of his mother and his mother’s mother all the way back to the first Kivati who’d traveled these shores and joined her spirit with the first totem animal. Everywhere he looked, he saw the Lady: the earth was Her womb, and the oceans Her tears; the mountains Her breasts and the stars Her hair. Her heart beat in the deep core of the planet with the promise that the Kivati would never be forgotten.

  He’d never left fate to the gods. “If I don’t return from the Land of the Dead, and Tiamat takes Kivati Hall, it will be the end of the Kivati. Maybe this is what the prophecy meant, that you will be the last. You must escape, Lucia.”

  “Alone?”

  “Promise me, Lucia Crane. You must survive.” She nodded her head a fraction, and he took that as assent. He crushed his mouth to hers in one last good-bye. The Aether he’d been holding back rushed through him in a wave of heated energy. It blew back the spider silk in a phantom wind and struck every nerve ending between them like flint. Spirits preserve him. Her lips lit under his touch, a firecracker in July, and everywhere they touched sparked with a thousand stars. She tasted of sea salt and moonbeams. He meant to say good-bye, but instead he poured every regret, every abandoned hope for their romance into that kiss and lost himself.

  She shocked him with the anger he tasted from her lips. Scalded him with this taste of what might have been. Teased him with the press of her breasts against his chest, the widening of her stance just enough for him to slip his knee between the skirts of her gown. He found the V of her thighs. It was soft and waiting, a heaven he’d only glimpsed in his dark dreams, not the proper way he’d imagined it in the light of day. What he wanted, and what he should want. In the dark, in the dreamscape, in the Spider’s intoxicating silk, there were no clear lines between right and wrong. There were no censuring eyes, no rules to uphold. Who would see if he gave in to the wild inside him? Who would know if he bore her down to the wet, rocky earth, on a bed of silk, and buried himself inside her?

  And if he didn’t survive, if his Thunderbirds lost the Hill to Tiamat, if this was indeed the end of it all, he might die easier knowing that his seed would live on. The Raven had long insisted he take her to mate. Only the man had held back. Propriety. Decorum. But at the mouth of the Gate to the Land of the Dead, those rules of civility melted away. He wanted her. Her bold tongue said she wanted him too.

  All of a sudden, she screamed.

  He looked up. A giant spider the size of a Volkswagen Bug clung upside down to the tunnel ceiling. It had fangs the length of his body. It held itself very still, sparkling silk clinging to every hairy leg, and watched him with giant, multifaceted eyes. Stand still or run?

  A drop of venom dripped down one long fang.

  “Run!” He pulled her after him, away from the tunnel entrance. She tripped in her slippers and constricting skirts. He cursed himself. Why hadn’t he dressed her in some black battle dress, pants and boots and practical leather? There was no time to Change. They tore through curtains of spider silk and the Aether clung to their skin, pulling them into the dreamscape, but the monster chasing behind kept their feet moving. The shimmering silk bathed the tunnel in a dim glow, barely enough to see the darker shadows in their path or the gaping black of the tunnel ahead.

  Then the ground dropped out beneath them, and they fell through a hole in the tunnel floor and out into the open air.

  Lucia’s skirts slid up to tangle her body and obscure her vision. She felt Corbette lock his arms around her as they shot into the open air, free falling into space. She got a sense of a vast cavern, with no walls as far as the eye could see, and then the roof of the tunnel disappeared from view into a sparkling, churning Aether of light swells and moonbeams. It was like the vast curvature of space above. No connection to the earth but Corbette’s iron grip, holding her, smelling of musk and cedar and safety.

  The sound of rushing water echoed from below. Lucia glimpsed a vast stretch of curving land, and then they were falling, falling, falling.

  She pressed her head against Corbette’s chest, but kept her eyes wide open. A river of black rose up, the barrier to the Land of the Dead. Humans had many names for it—Styx, River of Lost Souls—but whatever name it went by, it remained the first and last barrier to living bodies passing through to the world where they didn’t belong. She had just enough time to take a deep breath before they plunged into the freezing water.

  Pain stripped her body, worse than her worst Change. A pain so great it seemed like her soul was being ripped from her chest. She had to fight not to open her mouth and scream. The velocity of their fall carried them under, and the water wrapped them in its heavy embrace.

  Lucia was torn from Corbette’s grasp. The pain made her delirious. She didn’t know which way was up. Water soaked her heavy petticoats and skirts, and they tangled around her legs, ballast in the water. Her dress dragged her down. She would drown. She panicked. Her lungs burned.

  Help! she screamed inside her head, pouring everything she had into sending Corbette a message through the Aether. She’d never been able to before, but surely the threat of drowning was enough to spark her weak power.

  The Aether didn’t move for her. Not so much as a trickle. She shouldn’t fear water; she was Crane, for the Lady’s sake. Her panic should force the Change and free her from her murderous gown. She reached out, but she found nothing. No trace of the sparkling water that was her birthright. No Crane beating inside her.

  She couldn’t hold her breath any longer. Liquid seeped into her mouth, and instinctively she coughed. No air. No light. No Aether. She choked on the river of death.

  Drowning was a quiet affair. Welcoming, freezing. Be quiet, the river crooned. Be peaceful.

  Her helplessness fueled a rage inside her. No, she told the river. She wouldn’t be complacent in her own demise. She fought her skirts, tried to find the ties that would free her.

  And then someone grabbed her hand. Corbette’s mouth was suddenly on hers, and he was feeding her a breath. Lady of Life. She felt the ties snap and his blade against her skin. The sharp edge scraped her in his haste, but the pain jolted her oxygen-deprived mind. He helped wrestle her out of the fabric and dragged her to the surface. Her head broke water. Oxygen. Sweet, sweet oxygen. Her greed for it was so great she couldn’t force the water first from her lungs. She thrashed.

  “Easy, easy now. I’ve got you.” Corbette towed her on her back in a lifeguard’s hold. He dragged her to the shore and up onto a hard, rocky beach. Her chest heaved. She couldn’t stop coughing. It felt like she’d swallowed the entire river. Only once she was safely out of the river’s reach did he collapse by her side,
her icy skin white as snow next to his sun-tinted arm. Their breath steamed in the cold. They lay side by side for a long moment, treasuring each breath of clean, easy air.

  “Thank you,” Lucia whispered.

  “I couldn’t Change.” His voice was hoarse.

  She rolled her head to the side and looked at him. His wet black hair was plastered to his neck. He’d ditched his suit jacket and wore only wet wool trousers and a slick white linen shirt that clung to his soaking body. His hands were fisted against his sides. Why hadn’t he dried himself with the Aether? Why hadn’t he pulled fresh clothes and sluiced the water from his hair?

  “You can’t Change?” she asked, as the impact of that thought hit her, another blow stole a precious breath. “You can’t touch the Aether.”

  He stared at the strange swirling sky. There was no sign of the tunnel they’d fallen from. There was nothing to indicate they were underground at all.

  She sat up and rubbed her arms to get the blood flowing. Lady be, she was so cold. What she’d taken for driftwood and rocks turned out to be metal scrap. Giant pipes and half-buried machinery and, beneath her fingers, ancient coins, bent fasteners, and small, lost buttons.

  Something was deeply wrong. She tested herself. All her limbs seemed to be in order. Nothing broken, just bruised from the impact of hitting the water. A few scrapes from the slide and a thin line of blood where Corbette’s knife had cut the gown from her back. But when she reached inside herself for her totem self, her Crane, she found nothing. No trace of the bird spirit that had been her constant companion for the last five years. “The Crane is gone.”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t feel the Raven inside you?”

  He swallowed and shook his head.

  “The pain when we hit the river.” Lady, Lady. Without her totem, was she even Kivati? She wrapped her arms around herself. “Are we dead?”